10 October 2014

Scattershots – 10oct14 (updated 12oct14)

George Rebane

The dilemma of socialism is that it needs large masses of the ignorant and poor to stay in power. Socialists know that public policies which enable and empower the individual will grow the economy but doom collectivist governance.

Los Angeles gets a new national monument that President Obama will dedicate on his most recent fund raising trip through soCal. The huge land area covered is essentially all of the San Gabriel Mountains north of the greater LA area. The former national forest will be put into a permanent category of limited or no public use. Located next to where millions of people live, this takings is a poster child of Agenda21 in operation. Jo Ann and I spent much of our youth and family recreation days in those mountains. As a high schooler and college undergraduate I and my friends were often in those mountain canyons and ridge tops since we lived in the Foothill Blvd corridor right below the mountains. And within minutes from their homes, LA area families with picnic baskets or sleds and saucers would be enjoying themselves in summer and winter. Those accessible mountains were a godsend to rich and poor alike, and for generations a draw for people to move to California – where else could you ski in the morning and then spend the afternoon on a sunny beach? The LA Times today murmurs that some local leaders have had the temerity to opine their concerns that this federal takeover “will limit access” to this priceless recreation area. Sadly, Angeles National Forest RIP as Agenda21’s stack and pack corrals Americans into ever narrower corridors of access and mobility.

Meanwhile the markets are roiling as investors don’t have a clue about the Fed’s pulling the plug on zero interest rates, and the extent of the new recession into which the EU is sliding. Germany, the continent’s economic powerhouse, is faltering and Chancellor Merkel is asking her coalition government to come together to do some massive reduction of red tape that stifles their important business sector. This reminds us of the dysfunctional progressive mind. How come when socialists are in a panic about their latest economic debacle, they agree with the rest of us that reducing regulatory red tape on businesses will promote economic resurgence and growth? But then when the economy is not in dire straits, they can’t connect the dots as they pile on regulatory burdens which kill jobs and stifle the economy. Stupid is as stupid does.

Congressman LaMalfa and contender Heidi Hall met in the Rood Center last night for a civilized town hall debate sponsored by the LWV, who did an excellent job in organizing the affair. The audience was overflowing with rows of chairs set up in the hall outside the BoS chamber. From my perch I could see that the crowd was composed of about 80% liberals who had been turned out to give Ms Hall some much needed support in her run for LaMalfa’s seat. What impressed me again when I see so many leftwingers at such an event is that they immediately display themselves as the fervent faithful of something that can only be called a fundamentalist religion. The crowd was at times hard to control by the moderator as they enthusiastically applauded Ms Hall’s hot button points and exercised their disagreement with the congressman’s politically incorrect counters.

The crowd most vehemently demonstrated its unwavering faith when the candidates responded to climate change questions. Predictably Ms Hall was a true believer, and Mr LaMalfa was the skeptic. To the liberals the congressman’s skepticism was lese majeste of the highest order that volubly agitated them. For them the debate has been over for years, and the flood of contradictory evidence against AGW was non-existent, illegitimate, and ranged somewhere between blasphemy and irrecoverable stupidity. For me it was another witnessing of the mob mentality that today rules the land. From such ranks we draw those who believe the President has an endless “stash” of cash to dispense, and others who make the public case that Obama should be given “all the power he needs” (forget the Constitution) so that he can do all the good things he has promised.

And what gets totally ignored by these legions of liberal lemmings (here and across the country) is the continuing stream of reports like ‘The Global Warming Statistical Meltdown’ in the 10oct14 WSJ by Dr Judith Curry, former chair of Georgia Tech’s School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. The good professor brings us just the latest results of studies and investigations giving more evidence “that basic assumptions about climate change are mistaken: the numbers don’t add up.” The report details the specifics about the data, the models, the projections, the history of erroneous predictions, and the ever more extreme portents for the remainder of the century (apparently to hide past screw-ups). So how many in that Rood Center crowd will even read/hear about these results? How many of them even understand the basics of the reported sciences? That’s what I thought.

Finally, our Union's publisher Jim Hemig wrote an interesting piece in today’s (10oct14) edition (here) talking about the community’s perception of the newspaper as favoring either the Right or the Left. The paper has appeared to tilt one way or another in the past, enough to cause some to take a more formal look at its contents over time. The NC Republican Women Federated had a concern last year that the paper’s tilt was leftward, and therefore quietly launched a study that actually tallied the perspective of the published articles and letters to the editor. To their surprise, the data showed that The Union was a pretty much middle of the road publication giving almost equal coverage to both sides (perhaps save for their syndicated columnists). They later met with Mr Hemig to discuss their remaining concerns. In today’s piece Jim Hemig makes the case that The Union indeed tries hard to reflect a non-partisan policy. He concludes with –

But I’d like to challenge the extreme activist folks to join me in the middle of the road and to avoid labels. Maybe it’s not the most attractive place to be. But if we focus on local issues and avoid the stereotypical labeling of “sides,” we can truly discuss and help resolve problems in order to make our community the best it can be.

The only thing that I take a little issue with our publisher is in his view of the utility of labels. Labels are words that effectively summarize a longer discourse or definition of the referent so that subsequent discussion or debate can proceed in a more facile manner. When it comes to people and their socio-political ideologies, a correct label attached to such people efficiently communicates great predictive power as to the referent’s behavior. The problem with labels that Hemig attempts to sidestep or avoid is totally one-sided. Those of the Left want to hide the true and comprehensive nature of their beliefs, those of the Right are proud of their beliefs, will expand them at every opportunity, and don’t mind a bit to be appropriately labeled.

More specifically, the Left’s labeling problem goes back to the earlier part of the 20th century when the various forms of practiced collectivism began to get a bad reputation that dealt with everything from totalitarian state mass murders to milder forms of state coercion and limits on liberty. Today people of the Left don’t want to be labeled ‘collectivist’, ‘communist’, ‘socialist’, ‘fascist’, ‘progressive’, ‘liberal’, or ‘leftwinger’. These same people will never publicly avow their socio-political beliefs beyond the fuzzy and non-operative ‘kumbayah, it’s nice if everyone was just nice to each other, and shared everything’ tenet. They don’t want to be pinned down on their ideals and what's needed to achieve them, and so they claim that sticking such labels on them is a pejorative act of ‘name calling’.

We of the Right have no problem being identified or called out as ‘conservative’, ‘classical liberal’, ‘libertarian’, ‘rightwinger’, or even ‘conservetarian’. We wear such labels with pride because they represent beliefs which we are willing to nail to every city hall door and proclaim to the world. But I fear that Jim Hemig does not share this view and takes refuge hoping to avoid an ideological dharma battle in that most indeterminate place of all, the middle of the road while holding up Rodney King’s plaintive placard, ‘Why can’t we all just get along?’

Were I the publisher, I would publish my credo (as I have here) and proudly say this is what I believe and how I see the world. And then I would go on to make sure that my newspaper fairly represented the **expressed** views of the people in my readership. Now that might cause the political content of the paper to swing sometimes to the Left and then later to the Right, depending on when which side is more energetic in getting their views communicated to the paper. Because of my inherent biases, I would not put myself into the position of the being the community's Judge, Jury, and Executioner of Correct Balance – I’d let my readers decide which way the winds should blow this week and the next, and ... .

[11oct14 update]‘The Capitalist Cure For Terrorism’ by former Peruvian high official Hernando De Soto attempts to apply the lessons learned in Peru’s decades long fight against their indigenous Shining Path communist guerillas. He is going around the MENA (Mideast North Africa) region giving talks at Islamic conferences giving them the good news of how Peru’s government empowered its rural population to create wealth and resist Shining Path’s collectivist message. Unfortunately, he is trying to force a square peg into a crescent shaped hole. His exhortations to the West are essentially to reapply – apparently this time with feeling - the nation building policies that have failed miserably during the last decade plus.

What De Soto fails to understand is that Peru’s population was already under one government with a couple of cohesive cultures joined by a religion that was not antithetical to the principles of entrepreneurial capitalism. And the Shining Path’s declared objectives were local – they wanted to bring communism to Peru. The situation in the MENA region is almost diametrically opposite in every dimension, starting again with the misunderstanding and misapplication of the concept of ‘terrorism’. The Islamists have a transnational and extremely complex concoction of cultures, religious sects, historical feuds, global objectives, and existential conflicts that overwhelm the simple comparisons and nostrums offered by De Soto.

The main takeaway from the last decade is again that all cultures are not equal in any sense of the word, starting with their intrinsic worth to themselves and to the of the people on earth. We in the West should again have learned that all cultures can neither accept nor implement all kinds of economic paradigms and systems. Capitalistic entrepreneurship has been there for the taking for over five hundred years. Why was it not immediately taken up by countries all over the globe as they saw what advantages it gave the people of Europe and its American diaspora? The Left offers tortured answers that all circle back to the evil imperialism of the West. But the real answer as shown by Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, … is much simpler – it takes time to for cultural shifts to occur. But in recent decades that interval has been shortened to the extent that America has been the world’s white hat sheriff.

When we withdraw from that role, as we are doing now, then global chaos is the result with bad guys expanding and entrenching on all fronts. But that’s the topic of a forthcoming post.

[12oct14 update] Apologies for forgetting to mention the insightful and data-filled Cato Institute policy analysis piece 'The Dead Hand of Socialism - State Ownership in the Arab World' (#753) where the mix of culture and socialism in the MENA region is dissected. The study also references the efforts of Hernando De Soto whose op-ed piece was cited above.

Comments

The Middle of the Road is where you find the most roadkill, as animals cannot decide which way to run and get run over. Heming will soon be more publishing roadkill if insists on sitting in the middle of the road. Being a middle of the roader serves no one, lets see how long that lasts.

As much as he would love to steer the Union to the middle - the Union's reliance on using AP news stories puts them in the solid left. I will say they appear to to try to have both sides considered in the OP ED pages, but burying news items such as the resignation of our nation's top law non-enforcer in the back pages is nothing less than doing the bidding of the Democrat Party. The Dems do hope he can quietly slither back into the cesspool of whence he came to avoid actually having to account for his actions while in office.
I could write 20 pages about Thursday night at the Rood Center. Suffice it say that both sides played to their base. LaMalfa was direct and honest, possibly to a fault for most politico spin-meisters. Ms Hall was all over the place. She is, by her own estimation, middle of the road. It just so happens that she espouses the same exact line of most hard left and socialist party folk.

Paul,, either one is better than a LIB, even on their worst of days.
Even LIBS have disowned "O" and Co. " What? you want to give a speech to give me support? Uh,, thanks, but no thanks. Your the kiss of death.
Even some candidates running for office won't even admit voting for the somebitch.

Yes I Heard about "O" and his new land grab.. Yup,, for the inner city underprivileged..
How come I get the idea they won't go there anyway? But it it's prime real estate for
cartel dope grows.

Thanks Walt - I just about spit up when I heard him say it was for the children of color as they don't have any other access to parks. Only albinos can go to the parks in the LA area? So we restrict public access to land in order to let in more kids? What? I don't think he even cares if everyone knows he's lying.

It was good to hear both LaMalfa and Hall opposing the TPP (Trans Pacific Partnership), a favorite of both Obama and Romney Chamber of Commerce Republicans. It's a Classic Republicrat position showing in reality there is no difference between either party when big bucks are involved.

I find the brouhaha concerning The Union's political inclination to be quite curious. In addition to allowing newspapers' publishers to criticize the state, freedom of the press also permits them to express their political philosophies. That freedom also allows those who might disagree with a newspaper's politics to publish newspapers that expresses their own views.

In any event, a newspaper is under no obligation to be neutral or to be a reflection of the community in which it exists. Of course, the ability to become and remain a sustainable business may be affected by these decisions as readers also have freedoms including the privilege to not partake of those publications with which they disagree.

The Union's most frequent and caterwauling critic frequently justifies his strident commentary with claims that the paper does not represent its community and that its existence is threatened by its political position. Such advocacy would be acceptable, even admirable, if it was genuine but his history with The Union and the nature of his criticisms indicate that the newspaper's continuing success is among the least of his concerns. I would be much more impressed, and the community might be far better served, if this person were to use his award-winning journalistic skills to publish a newspaper that demonstrates his principles rather than continuing to exhibit how petty he can be.

"The dilemma of socialism is that it needs large masses of the ignorant and poor to stay in power."

It is now making sense why your entire range of opinions are so far off, you are starting with a very distorted and untrue premise.

Some of the highest standards of living and happiest citizens on the planet are from democratic socialist nations. Having strong social safety nets that are paid with taxes means peace of mind, security, and a more equitable safe society. These facts run true in one after another of democratic socialist nations.

Third world or undeveloped nations is where we find the least government services and the poorest living conditions. Such as no water safety or access, very little infrastructure such as power in homes or roads and horrible access to decent medical services, and sky high infant mortality due to these basic things being absent. Workers work long hours with little pay, environmental work safety standards, and no benefits. Third world countries are American libertarian and "conservatarian" paradises when it comes to government services or rather the lack of government services. I will choose Denmark or Sweden over Somalia or Haiti any day of the week.

I will choose Denmark or Sweden over Somalia or Haiti any day of the week.

Well of course you would choose Sweden with its authoritarian traditions. As far as my libertarian/conservatarian choices before I'd play the Somalia card I would have course play the Switzerland, Hong Kong...even given the more recent unpleasantness, or even of all things the Canada card which even with with it's ponderous and inefficient state run health care system and poor though improving (largely due to the governments inability to make its gun control computer databases work) status on firearms ownership.

The trouble with the lefts favorite trump card Somalia isn't that it's libertarian it's that it's been trapped between those two great destroyers of worlds incipient socialism and Islam for the past 50 years.

The posts by Russ Steele and Fish outlining the horrors of marijuana reek of Reefer Madness. The study they refer to is a sham and every point has been disproven in thousands of medical studies. (Please see our website for a partial list of over 4,000 studies, www.asa-nc.com)

Your faith in Swedish and/or Danish economic models is misplaced, as these nations no longer fall in the "socialist" moniker. Yes, it is true that these nations enjoy a high QOL, but in times of hardship (Swedish 1990's crisis) one can see how appropriate government reactions can steer the national ship to more open seas. In fact, during times of hardship (and even today, the Swedish government has enacted austerity measures and lessened regulations to allow the open market to thrive in better conditions. Currently, the Swedish government is selling off many of its state-owned industries to improve long term national economic outlook, and reduce the government debt. As this continues to occur, Sweden will place its economy into the hands of capitalist marketplace rules, a fact that even their government recognizes is the most beneficial path to future economic success. If my math is correct, less than 5% of industry is state run (and shrinking on a PLANNED annual basis), hardly making Sweden a socialist country.

Sweden utilizes techniques espoused here by Dr. Rebane, such as large scale workforce investment into emerging sectors, such as technology. This ensures that the Swedish workforce will enjoy employment for years to come. To cover those whom don't fit the mold, the Swedish government utilizes state run "work" programs and/or early retirement to keep the declared unemployment rate at an artificially low level. The main point to take away from this is that even though Swedish workers are currently taxed at approx. 60% of their income, this figure continues to fall with each passing year, as does the amount of those on welfare and state involvement in industry. Swedes are an intelligent people, and these trends suggests that they are fully aware that less state involvement and taxation will provide Sweden with the best financial outlook in the coming years.

On a side note, the Swedes don't have the unfortunate position in the world of having to quell and/or police any kind of dictator and/or rogue nation, which allows their government to favor butter over guns. This fact alone would not allow a Swedish economic model to thrive here in the US of A, without even discussing the fact that the US GDP and population far exceeds that of Sweden.

Allow me to dispel some media myths expressed above and offer the perspective of somebody who spent 40 years on both sides of the media divide--12 years as a reporter and editor, and 28 in corporate relations, primarily in media relations.

For starters, the use of AP stories by The Union or any other subscriber to the service doesn't put them "in the solid left." AP is a news service that provides regional, national and international news coverage to media that can't afford to do it on their own.

AP's members (technically it's a cooperative) include CNN and The New York Times--as well as Fox News and The Wall Street Journal. Anybody who thinks AP has a political agenda is truly clueless.

No newspaper can afford to be everywhere for its readers, so they must narrow its focus to what they can do well. In the case of The Union, that means covering western Nevada County. If you want to know what's going on in the rest of the world, you have to look to other sources.

Given the focus of the paper, it's perfectly plausible that a story on the resignation of the attorney general would end up on a back page of The Union. That editorial decision is a reflection of the paper's focus and has nothing to do with the "bidding of the Democratic Party."

There's a notion floating around that newspapers are engaged in a conspiracy to distort the news and make selective use of the facts to promote some agenda. If that's the case, it's the most subtle conspiracy known to man.

I worked for The Union for four years, 18 months as the assistant city editor. That job required me to attend a news meeting every afternoon, where the various editors discussed the articles and pictures we would use in the next day's paper.

In the more than 150 meetings I attended, I never encountered one instance where a story was rejected or sent back for rewrite because it didn't mesh with the prevailing views of management. No story was ever assigned to promote or trash any political view in the news at the time.

The criteria for what went in the paper and where it appeared was simple: What combination of articles and pictures would generate the most reader interest? That's it. Nothing more.

The Union's opinion page is designed to be a mirror of the community. Since this is an opinionated community, you are going to read a lot of things you don't like. Nevertheless, the opinion page is one of the most popular parts of the paper.

It's been my experience over the years that people don't like specific stories because they don't validate what the reader already believes, therefore they must be distortions or lies. It's the job of a good newspaper to give its readers a better understanding of the world they live, not make them feel good about their political opinions.

Newspaper people can deal with this because they know it goes with the territory. When Brian Hamilton was named editor of The Union, I sent him an email congratulating him and reminded him that if he did the job long enough and well enough, he would annoy practically everybody in the community.

If you want to be the most popular guy in town, don't work for the newspaper.

I disagree wholeheartedly with George Boardman on the AP issue. I have been sorely disappointed with the bias in AP stories as they consistently favor the left. This is especially true with Seth Borenstein who does their "science" reporting. He is in the bag for mann made global warming and many other liberal views on th environment. He is very blatant about it. I have exchanged numerous emails over the years about his reporting and he denies any bias. The AP does not give equal time to both sides of an issue that the reporter is in favor of. The quotes from a "contrarian" are below the fold and usually on the back page. There are other sources that can add balance but the reporters fail to try to interview or get information from them.

Rarely if ever do you see any in depth articles on things like the blatant ripoff of taxpayers money by Earth Justice and their ilk. Rarely does AP do a story, if ever, on the abuse of grants and the waste of money by democrats and their eco allies, or the trial lawyers.. As a person who was misquoted numerous times in my career fighting leftwing extremism, I know up close and personal the bias exists.

GeorgeB 1022am - Thanks for those insightful remarks. They tie with my experience with the newspaper as one of its regular columnists after the FUE was dismissed.

Adding on to BenE's 1217am and KeenO's 1006am. First, I appreciate BenE stepping in with his strong liberal view of socialism's benefits. The elicited response is required for any meaningful resurrection of the debate on socialism that today is more timely than ever (this is a circled barn on RR and given today's rogue administration, it's time to take up the gauntlet again). While I agree with KeenO's comment, I know that he'll be the first to admit that there's a lot more to be said about how certain EU members have embraced and/or flirted with socialism, and what types of remediations they have been driven to in the post-war years. I will soon post a dedicated piece about socialism so we can all dive into a focused discussion.

But I end this with the strong observation that any claimed successes of practiced socialism in Europe cannot be correctly interpreted without admitting that the EU has been an essentially 'kept continent' under the beneficent umbrella of America's global hegemony (both military and economical).

I agree with Michael K.and George B. - if you don't like what you read in the paper, then don't buy it!
These vague conspiracy theories regarding (un)politically correct reporting biases are getting a bit long in the tooth. Maybe we need a Grand Jury investigation!
Speaking of vague conspiracy theories...
Agenda 21 - the numbers please! How, pray tell, is moving The San Gabriel Mountians from USFS classification to national monument status a taking?
The days of folks hauling engine blocks and TVs into the national forests in the LA basin to use for target practice are (unfortunately) long gone. Is that the "taking" you are referring to? There are two FS permited shooting areas still allowed in the Angeles National Forest. Will they remain in the new national monument - I don't know.
Beyond that, I cannot figure out what you think people will be prohibited from doing in the hills once it becomes a national monument.
While is true that the Forest Service is planning to drop fees for national forest use, and, as a national monument, usage fees are more of a probablity; an annual pass is only $80.

If the following statement is true, can you please explain whey the AP has adopted the anthropogenic global warming political agenda?

Anybody who thinks AP has a political agenda is truly clueless.

If you cannot explain why they have adopted the AGW political agenda, then color yourself clueless.

One of my main disagreements with the Union editorial policy was the fact they published multiple AGW stores from the AP without any counter balance from the other side of the issue. Mr Ackerman and I decided to dissolve our relationship, when he complained that out of 11 columns I submitted 2 had provided the skeptical side of greenhouse gas emissions and AGW. He said that 2 was too many, and he had professional to write about global warming, for example Amy Goodman a liberal anthropogenic global warmer.

In sum, that is a political agenda. AGW is all about politics and not science. So, history will show that the AP and The Union had a political agenda.

BradC 1112am - As long as you continue to describe Agenda21 as a conspiracy theory - "vague" or otherwise - I will not engage with you. I have explained the role and use of the Agenda21 objectives and label, and have cited numerous documents and links to corroborate that there is no conspiracy involved with Agenda21, it is simply the overarching collection of objectives and means to achieve a world that progressives have been pushing for at least two generations. There is nothing surreptitious about A21 - it is very public and aggressively pursued on a 24/7/365 basis. What the Left doesn't like is that using that label (among others) allows one to efficiently expose the totality of the brave new world that they are nudging the rest of us toward. (For more go to the Agenda21 category on RR.)

The liberal/progressive code word for Agenda 21 are sustainability. The tool for Agenda 21 social change are the plethora of climate change regulations, designed to modify human behavior. You can read through Forest Service Forest Management Plans and find sustainability and climate change through out the documents, all to control human access to the forest. One of the new sections was restoration. This was akin to the restoration we see in national parks, no human access, area under restoration. Segments of the national forest can now be declared under restoration and all human activity could be banded. Agenda 21 was never mentioned, but the core tentacles of Agenda 21 were evident in paragraph after paragraph - restrict human access to the wilderness.

RussS 419pm - Those are important points. Yes, 'sustainability' and 'smart growth' among others are A21 watchwords to promote its objectives. And 'restoration' is a common ruse under which the feds deny public access to lands that they promote from BLM to National Forests to National Parks to National Monuments to Wildlife Refuges. Each one ratchets back public usage bit by piece. As the younger generations become of age, they never even question that there are huge hunks of their country to which they are denied access. It is we older folks who witnessed and enjoyed the use of public lands who are the 'canaries in the mine' telling the younger generations what is being taken away from them. And yes, it all comes under the objectives best summarized by the label A21 - not a conspiracy, just visit your local ICLEI.http://rebaneruminations.typepad.com/rebanes_ruminations/2012/10/agenda21-is-not-a-conspiracy.html

Oh, Mr Boardman - 'Anybody who thinks AP has a political agenda is truly clueless.'
I will take that as a shot straight across my bow.
Most of your post at 10:22 was as informative to me as the fact that the sun rises in the east. You mean to say that small regional newspapers don't have offices in all major cities of the world? Why, strike me down speechless - I never knew! Ergo - (according to Boardman) they have to use AP. There's simply no other news service available. At all. If you want to assert that all national news stories all go to the back pages in the Grass Valley Union, please assert it plainly. I understand that the Union would want to focus on local stories, but I really do think I've seen other national (and international) news stories on the front page. We can disagree on what might make good front page news in the Union, but please don't try to tell me that burying the story of Holder resigning displeased the Dems. I said that they were solid left. I didn't say Bolsheviks or far left or looney left. And I did say they seem to try to be fair on the OP ED page. I simply see a preponderance of left leaning AP news articles and very few or no right leaning. Can't remember any right leaning AP articles at all, in fact. They do run articles by a local conservative in the finance section and most local articles are neutral. Didn't say they were wacko left. By your own words - 'It's the job of a good newspaper to give its readers a better understanding of the world they live, not make them feel good about their political opinions.' I fully agree.
The news article in the Grass Valley Union (credited to AP) about Rick Perry being indicted was nothing less than a hit piece written by the Dem party in Austin TX.
It in absolutely no way fulfilled your own criteria of what a good news story is about. While being factual in the points made, it also omitted a lot of other facts that did not in any way inform the reader of the entire situation. I looked up on Google 'AP news Rick Perry indicted' and found an AP article that was far longer and more informative than what appeared in the Union. Perhaps for lack of space the paper edited out all info that cast Perry in a some what better light? I don't know.
As a supposed professional news guy, you might want to follow your own rules and get to know some one before you label them as 'clueless'. I don't like BS in the news from either side of the spectrum. The AP is supported by mostly left leaning news outlets and I would venture that most of their employees are not conservative or Republican. If you think they are all perfect humans and can keep their bias 100% out of the stories they write - again, you run with that. I won't, because I'm a long way from clueless.

As far as closing off Angeles National Forest, no worries. Our younger generation can always view our forests via a fleet of high resolution cameras attached to drones. It is like being there....or maybe not.

BarryP 1000am - Yes, this will be a most interesting meeting. Putin is actually between a rock and a hard place. The thugocracy that he has created in Russia cannot generate any wealth or economic gains outside of the country's vast extractive industries that are owned by corrupt oligarchs who are supported by the govt gun. Putin has had to resort to the usual Russian authoritarian diversions of creating situations wherein the motherland must be protected against invaders, and/or ethnic Russians in the near abroad are being mistreated and must be protected. These are manipulated diversionary tensions for which the Slavs have had a weakness for generations, successfully taking their minds off the existential fact that they are living on shit pile.

If he can't keep the Russian masses quiet, there are other circles of power in the Kremlin that are ready to replace him and try their hand at the game while putting themselves in the front ranks of profiting from the payoffs. (I don't think Team Obama knows any of this.)

Sounds like Venezuela or North Korea. Wish more countries were like Uruguay than those thugs or any number of tin horn dictatorships or Communist run states. Even the commie reds on Mainland China are blaming the Hong Kong protests on the USA. "The Yankees are coming, battle stations, battle stations!"

Putin is KGB through and through but is a moderate compared to those pulling the strings in the Kremlin. Silly Obama is a momma's boy is a gang street fight.